I've had my 2006 HCH for about a year and five months, and currently have 6465 km (4025 miles) on my odometer. I recently received a letter from my dealership stating that "our records indicate that your vehicle may be due for its next scheduled maintenance". My question is, should I take my car in for maintence now, or wait for a code to appear on my maintenance minder?

On a related topic, I had some recall work done awhile back that involved replacing a module in my dash, which caused the trip meters to blank out. Now I'm starting to wonder if the maintenance data was also deleted/reset as part of that update?

 

If you've had your car for a year and a half, you should probably take it in if they didn't do anything besides the recal. You are not getting a maintenance reminder, either because you don't have many miles on your car, or because it was reset during the recal. You're maintenance minder should tell you what your oil life %age is. Do you recall if it went back to 100% after you had the work done?

Overall, I think that if you have not had your car maintenanced, then you should. A year and a half is a long time to go.

 

The "service reminder" is actually just an advertisement (likely with a few coupons?) to get you into the dealership to spend some money. How could they possibly know when your car is due for service other than extrapolating out how many miles it had on it last time they saw it?

Most HCH II's are going about 7500 - 10,000 miles until the first A1 service depending on your driving patterns (trip length, etc). I wouldn't take it in before 7500 miles unless your maintenance minder is on. There have been numerous discussions about the break in oil having special additives that prolong engine wear. What does your oil life currently read?

Eric

 

I had the oil changed just before the recall work was done, so I have no way of knowing whether the recall work caused the oil percent to reset.

I had my oil changed in April (after owning my car for one year) because the owner's manual states that the oil should be changed after one year, regardless of the oil percent value displaying on the maintenance minder. (At the time of the oil change, I believe that the oil percent on the maintenance minder was displaying 50%). After the oil change, I reset it to 100%, and it currently reads 80%.

 

Go untill it tells you to change.

 

Thank you for your responses, but I have one more question...

Is the Oil Life % indicator independent of the Maintence Items (ie A/B, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)? For example, since I don't drive a lot, I will always change the oil based on time elapsed (1 year, as recommended in the owner's manual), rather the remaining oil percent. So, if every year I reset my Oil Life % from approx 50% back to 100%, will that have any affect of the Maintence Items not appearing? Or in other words, do Maintenance Items only appear when the Oil Life % is nearing zero?

Sorry for overanalyzing the situation; I would just like to get a good understanding of how it all works...

 

Mrbond, I beleive items 1,2,3,4,5 allways appear with a or b service. Your manual tells you what these items are. I would go until the maintenance minder told me when to service. It sounds like 100% is around 10000 miles so you could do the 12345 items at 15000 kil. if you insist on changing the oil every year. Your service people should be able to help you. You could also not rest the MM and do items 12345 when the wrench appears. H